Monday, April 03, 2006

Does Red Clash with Red?

Stephen and I have the creeping crud. Or the crud anyway. So yesterday was spent holding our aching heads, and lazing about on the furniture. We also listened to the abridged version of Fast Food Nation on tape. Good lord. I will never eat another hamburger again. (BTW, did you know that the poor assholes who work on the "killing floor" of the slaughterhouse stand ankle deep in blood? You didn't? Well, now you do.) I definitely recommend the book. Mr. Schlosser does a fantastic job of showing the interactions and the links between fast food, the beef and chicken and potato industries, the growth of mega-corporations like con-agra, J.R. Simplot, and a dozen others, and a variety of other social phenomena. It's really quite fascinating. And then there's the part about the people standing in the ankle deep blood. And other things that I won't even mention here but will probably give me nightmares.

On a happier note, all that sitting on my ass gave me the chance to finish the first sleeve of Manly. And I've even cast on for the second sleeve. But what a bitch that second sleeve always is. I'm in the homestretch now though.

And now for the real topic of this post. Does red clash with red? My sister has asked me to knit a hat for my niece, Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn has bright red hair but in spite of this, or perhaps because of this fact, I desparately want to knit her a bright red hat with some sort of fair isle design done in black. Every time I think of it, the logical part of my brain says: no. She has bright red hair. A red hat will clash with that red hair. How about a nice blue hat? With white snowflakes? Hmmm. That would be pretty. Right?

But still. I want to knit her the red hat with the black design. Maybe a dragon. A big black dragon on a red hat. So what do you all think out there? I have the blue and white yarn in the stash but would have to buy the red and black yarn. I suspect that the logical side of me is going to win out and the next project will be a blue hat with white snowflakes. Or perhaps the other fair isle design I've got up there. Both from my Knitting Stitch Bible. Both pretty standard fair isle designs.

I'm going to think about this while finishing the second sleeve for Manly. I also found another tiny mistake in the pattern. It was no big deal and easily fixed however. Which is good because I didn't possess the brain power to puzzle over a pattern fix yesterday.

Thanks guys. I may just make both hats. The blue and white one now because it will use stash yarn and the red and black one later. Also, chacha, I watched supersize me last year. It was also pretty disturbing. But I have to say that nothing disturbed me more than the detailed description of the slaughterhouse that Eric Schlosser gives in Fast Food Nation. I mean, you would have to assume that a slaughterhouse would be pretty horrific, no matter what, but the description given went beyond what I had imagined. The only time we eat fast food anymore is on days when we are thoroughly hungover. Because there's nothing more appetizing when you've poisoned yourself as a sausage mcmuffin with egg and cheese, greasy hasbrowns, all washed down with orange juice.